


Standing Still

by tfm



Series: Standing [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-19
Updated: 2010-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:12:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tfm/pseuds/tfm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whilst conducting a custodial interview, Rossi and Prentiss find the nature of their relationship shifting. Things don't go as planned on both fronts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

****

Standing Still

_Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only to stand still._

** _Chinese Proverb_ **

**Part One**

It’s a little past eight a.m when Hotch puts the case file on his desk, not offering any form of explanation. Rossi flips it open, and the first thing he sees are the photos of mutilated corpses. The second thing he sees is the picture of the man who killed them. His eyes are dead and hollow, his hair slicked back. The smile on his face would be disconcerting to someone who hadn’t seen ten times worse in their lifetime.

Robert Albright. Forty-three years old. Convicted of the rape, murder and torture of seven women. Sentenced to death by lethal injection. All appeals denied. Rossi had retired by the time Albright had started killing, but he remembers following the story in the papers, unconsciously building up a profile. Intelligent, arrogant, well-paying job. But then Albright had been caught, without the Bureau having called him for consult.

He closes the file with a little more harshness than is necessary. He’d forgone coffee this morning, on the assumption that the cut price break room stuff would have been enough to serve his needs. Of course, he hadn’t counted on the coffee machine being out of commission, and he wasn’t about to touch that instant crap. The taste of mouthwash still lingers, taunting him.

‘I’m fairly sure this one’s already solved,’ he says dryly, which causes Hotch to raise an eyebrow slightly. It’s the only outward sign the Unit Chief gives of amusement.

‘Albright has consented to a custodial interview,’ Hotch says shortly, and things start making a little more sense to Rossi. In less than a week, Robert Albright will be nothing more than another prisoner who is put to death with a deadly cocktail of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. His crimes, though, will leave an imprint upon the world, and it’s an imprint that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Behavioral Analysis Unit would like to gain a better understanding of.

‘You want me to do the interview?’ Rossi asks, but it’s more a statement of fact than a question.

Hotch nods. ‘The execution is next week,’ he reveals. Then he pauses momentarily, before adding, ‘You should take Prentiss with you.’ He leaves without further explanation, but then Rossi opens the file once more, and takes note of the fact that all of Albright’s victims were brunettes. He understands both the necessity of Prentiss’ presence at the interview and Hotch’s veiled hesitancy.

Rossi’s not exactly worried, though. Emily Prentiss can take care of herself.

*          *          *

Emily puts the Styrofoam cup down, shrugging off her coat and scarf as she gets to her desk, the stifling warmth of the heaters already starting to make her feel uncomfortable. It’s a startling dichotomy to the cold outside. Across from her, Morgan’s on the phone, but he gives her a short wave in greeting.

She gives him a small nod in reply, reaching enthusiastically for her caffeinated salvation. Sleep hadn’t come easily last night; replaced instead by one of those inevitable sessions of self-reflection that always seemed to follow cases. It’s part of the reason why she’s a little later than normal.

She inhales the scent of cinnamon, following up with a long sip. In her haste, she forgets just how full the cup is, and inevitably spills it over her recently degloved hands. She mutters an expletive, and, noting Morgan’s silent amusement out of the corner of her eye, shoots him an irritated glare. It’s not the first time this has happened, which is why there’s a box of Kleenex on her desk. It’s also the reason she doesn’t drink in the car anymore. Soon she’ll probably forgo buying coffee altogether, and simply make it when she gets in, but even that has a less than perfect success rate.

It’s the closest thing she’s got to a drinking problem.

She’s scrubbing at the fresh dark spot on her shirt when she sees Rossi walking towards the bullpen, and unconsciously starts scrubbing a little harder. She doesn’t know whether or not he saw the little incident that led to the stain, but somehow, it suddenly seems very important that he doesn’t think she’s a _complete _klutz.

‘Maybe you should buy a thermos,’ he suggests, telling Emily that he did see, and she feels herself blushing slightly. Hopefully, though, it won’t be noticed beneath her wind-burnt cheeks.

‘Are you kidding?’ she asks, feigning incredulousness. ‘With my luck, it’d explode in my face.’ It’s an exaggeration of her misfortune, and they both know it.  He grins at it anyway, and passes her a case file.

Robert Albright.

She knows this case. She’d been working out of the Chicago Field Office when he’d been at his peak, and a few of her colleagues briefly investigated the disappearance of one woman before it became evident that it was a serial matter. By the end of the case, he’d killed two women from Illinois, one from Indiana, and four from Ohio. The BAU caught him torturing the eighth victim red-handed.

‘What about him?’ she asks, her voice taking on a comparatively somber tone.

‘He’s “consented to a custodial interview,”’ Rossi says. ‘If we leave now, we should be able to make it to Youngstown before it gets too late.’

Her lip twitches slightly. It’s an interesting way of bringing it up. He’s not asking if she’d like to tag along, he’s treating it as a given.

‘Sounds like one hell of a romantic getaway,’ she quips, and almost regrets it, because the last time David Rossi was in Ohio, Zoe Hawkes died. Though he hasn’t really spoken about it at length with anyone, she knows he still feels guilty. Knows that he thinks he could have done something more to save that young woman from a serial killer.

‘As long as you’re not going to make me listen to Peter Coyote read the _Foundation Trilogy_, I think we should be fine,’ he says, and Emily relaxes slightly.

‘Well I don’t have the _Foundation Trilogy_,’ she starts. ‘But if you’re interested, I could bring along Stephen Fry’s rendition of _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_…’ She doesn’t mention that the only reason she owns _that_ is because she finds Stephen Fry’s voice as sexy as hell.

‘I think we can survive without it.’

She doesn’t have any plans for the next few days, which isn’t coincidence so much as it is a fact of life. There are no phone calls she needs to make to inform anyone of her absence. No-one, save for the people she works with, that would even notice if she did go somewhere.

It’s depressing. It gives her little comfort to think that the same could be said for Rossi, Morgan and Reid. JJ has Will and Henry, Garcia has Kevin, and Hotch (even if he forgets it sometimes) has Jack.

She sighs inwardly, pulling her go bag out from underneath her desk. She’s fairly sure that its contents are suitable for a road-trip to Youngstown, Ohio. After all, it’s not really much different from a case. All her clothes have been washed and refolded, the tiny little bottles of shampoo and conditioner refilled.

The case file she slips into her bag, fastening the brass-colored buckles. The tan leather feels soft under her fingertips, an old familiar friend.

‘Got everything you need?’ There’s a vaguely amused tone to his voice, and for a moment she wonders if there’s anything to it, or whether it’s just her imagination.

*          *          *

It’s almost ten, and they’ve been on the road for half an hour when she flips open her bag, navigating past her laptop and a journal article on culture conflict and crime to find the case file.

She tests the weight of it in her left hand, noting the thickness. It’s even more disconcerting to think that it’s mostly abridged files in there; summaries of crime scene reports and autopsies. To have included all of the details of the case would have required several boxes. If it were an actual case, rather than a custodial interview, she would have considered powering up the laptop, and opening the file attachments she had asked Garcia to send her, but she doesn’t have that much battery life left, and using the laptop in the car can be as awkward as hell.

Even the abridged versions aren’t exactly good bedtime reading. She’s vaguely reminded of some macabre children’s fairy tale. Innocent young woman is kidnapped by the evil prince. Evil prince then proceeds to torture, rape and kill the innocent young woman. Rinse and repeat. Every victim is a slightly different version of the same story. The first one, he had sliced the nipples off with a scalpel. The second, he disemboweled. The photos of Albright before the arrest show a sophisticated, clean-cut man. It seems strange to think of him as the kind of man who could perform such vile acts, but then, she’s seen stranger discrepancies. Before Danny Murphy, she’d never fully appreciated the reality of a child murderer. That had put off the maternal urges for a good couple of days.

‘Everything alright?’ Rossi asks, his eyes leaving the road briefly to meet hers.

‘It’s like Snow White had a run in with the Spanish Inquisition,’ she mutters, almost regretting it. There’s a joke there to be made, but he doesn’t make it. It’s as much from the fact that he’s not going to make light of their deaths as the fact that his knowledge of 1970s British comedy is lacking.

‘It _was _a pretty gruesome one,’ he admits, and she’s not quite sure whether he’s doing it to make her feel better, or if he’s just being frank. It doesn’t really make a difference, because he’s right. For all the prevalence of sexual sadism in the media, it’s not as common as the public would like to think. Some of their unsubs use sex and torture, but it’s very rarely to this extent. Titillation at its finest.

She flips to the original psychological profile, briefly noting the name _Jason Gideon_ on the first page. Gideon had been the Unit Chief before the Boston incident, she remembers – he probably took over after Rossi left for the first time – which means that there’s a fair chance that Hotch worked this case as well. Why the Unit Chief isn’t the one conducting the interview, she isn’t quite sure, but she isn’t about to pass up the opportunity.

Sociopath. Narcissist. Both corroborated by the post-arrest psychological evaluation, only then, they had used the words _Antisocial Personality Disorder_ and _Narcissistic Personality Disorder_, as though it had been more concrete when they had someone to stick the profile to.

In a way, all of these things are very good for them, but also very bad. She remembers reading a paper on interviewing sexual sadists; it all comes down to the fact that they enjoy the attention. They enjoy flaunting their supposed intellectual superiority above the interviewer. The paper had also mentioned that interviews were likely to be lengthy and exhausting. Of course, the paper had been referring to sexual sadists as suspects, and it’s been a long time since Robert Albright was merely a suspect.

Still, it’s a good thing she’s got a week’s worth of clothes in her bag.

Exactly _what _they’re trying to learn, she’s not quite sure. On a broader scale, the information will be used for the Criminal Personality Research Project. Collated and filed with dozens of other interviews. If that was the only reason for the interview, then Rossi probably would have taken Reid. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why she had been the one picked, and it’s not because of her profiling skills. She’s been a member of the FBI for almost thirteen years, and yet this is uncharted territory for her. Rossi’s probably done a fair few of them, both as a Bureau employee, and as research for his books. She wonders if he’ll use what they learn today for a new book.

_Emily tries but misunderstands._

She lets the file fall to her lap, and leans back in the seat. She doesn’t quite sigh, but Rossi repeats his previous question.

‘How many of these have you done?’ She avoids his question completely, fingers absentmindedly tapping the armrest.

He’s silent for a moment; adding them all up, she thinks.

‘A dozen,’ he says, ‘Maybe more.’ It’s a casual response, as if he’s talking about the number of books he’s read in the last week. Of course, he sounds like that a lot; a sort of blasé arrogance.

She processes that information, not entirely sure what she’s gained by asking it, beyond an assurance that she’s out of her depth. In fact, she’s not confident that her presence is defined by anything more than the fact that she shares the physical characteristics of the victims.

_The interviewer should be of detective status or above, preferably older than the suspect, and superior to him in physical stature, personality, and intelligence. The interviewer must appear confident, relaxed, and at least as calm as the suspect. Any personal feelings about the crime or the suspect must be suppressed._

‘Did you want to stop for lunch somewhere?’ he asks when the clock hits one, and she’s immediately glad of the subject change. There’s only so much rape and torture she can read about.

After an affirmative answer, he drives into a gas station just off the Interstate, where they find food that manages to somehow be both ungodly expensive and actually tastes half-decent; a rare combination in their experience. Usually it’s expensive and tastes like crap.

She carefully balances her chicken sandwich, and the glass bottle of diet coke that Rossi had picked up for her while she had made a thorough examination of the station’s restrooms. Her standards for restrooms aren’t particularly high; a childhood of living in countries that favored the squat toilet ensured that.

‘Are you going to spill that everywhere?’ Rossi asks, eying the bottle of soda. He won’t make jokes about the dead, but making fun of her is fair game.

‘Let’s just say I’ll need to stop and change my shirt every few miles,’ she deadpans, and he gives a short grin.

‘I hope you packed for that,’ is all he says.

She smiles, but grips the bottle tightly nonetheless. If physics decides to screw her over though, it’s not going to be of much help.

*          *          *

Four hours later, and Emily’s fast asleep, the case file returned to her bag, and the empty soda bottle in the bin of a rest stop fifty miles back. The drive had remained mercifully spill free.

Seeing the dark circles under her eyes, he had declined her offer to switch drivers. He’s driven much longer trips than this. Back in the early days of the BAU, they never had the private jet, and travel was conducted by car, or, if they were lucky, a commercial flight. Technically speaking, they probably could have taken a commercial flight for this trip; less than an hour, compared to the nine or so that it’s going to take them by car. The main problem is the cost. It’s a custodial interview, which means that in the scheme of things, it isn’t particularly urgent. Jet fuel is expensive, and commercial travel isn’t much better. He could have paid for the flight himself – they both could have – but the Bureau has reservations about such things. Something to do with insurance.

In any case, he doesn’t mind. It’s good company, despite the fact that she’s asleep right now. She’s a good agent, and a good person, in spite of any doubts there are on her end.

She’s never actually done a custodial, which had surprised him at first, because although she hasn’t been in the BAU for very long, she’s got a decade of Bureau experience before that.  But then, experience in the Bureau doesn’t necessarily equal experience in the field of serial offending, a fact which become painfully clear every time they find themselves flying out to a field office in Austin, or Reno, or any other city in the continental United States. The number of agents who still believe that some form of psychic powers is involved in profiling is astonishing.

He had almost been surprised when Hotch had told him to take Prentiss. He’s got every confidence that she can handle the interview, but he’s not entirely sure that _he_’_ll_ be able to handle the inevitable threats of a serial killer. He’s not exactly the calmest person when it comes to certain situations. And that’s not even taking the nature of his relationship with Emily into account.

It’s a little while later when they’re driving into Youngstown that he nudges Emily awake. She blinks slowly, taking stock of her surroundings.

‘It’s past eight,’ he says, by way of greeting. ‘We could grab a late dinner and go through the files at the hotel. That should give us plenty of time to get some rest before tomorrow.’ Of course, he only sleeps five hours a night, so at the very least, _he’ll_ be rested.

She nods, yawning. ‘That sounds good.’

‘Any food preferences?’

They end up grabbing a few cartons of Chinese food from a little place off one of the main streets. Though there’s a liquor store right next door, they forgo the opportunity to buy a bottle of red – they’ll need clear heads tomorrow morning. He does hit the 7-11, though, and buys a box of cereal, a quarter-gallon of milk and some other bits and pieces. They won’t have time to find a diner in the morning, and he wants to face the day on a full stomach.

The hotel JJ had called ahead and booked them into is a little off the beaten track, but it’s close to the prison, which will be useful, especially if they end up staying longer than expected. The rooms are pretty standard fare; double bed, nightstand, table, television, bar fridge, bathroom. The beds are a little bit lumpy, and the shower is barely big enough to swing a cat in, but they’ve certainly stayed in far worse places. If anything, Rossi would find himself complaining about the sickly green color that the walls have been painted. It clashes horribly with the mauve bedspread, and he finds himself mentally writing out the customer feedback form to management.

They freshen up slightly before getting started; the long car ride hadn’t been particularly kind on either of them. He relieves his bladder and washes his face before grabbing his briefcase and opening the adjoining door to Emily’s room. She’s already got the cartons of food spread out on the table, serving it out into a couple of plastic bowls that they’d picked up at the 7-11. Hotel rooms don’t even have basic crockery anymore.

He pulls the only chair in the room up to the edge of the bed. Since the table’s covered in half empty boxes, they’re using the mauve bedspread as their workspace. Emily’s sitting at the other end of the bed, cross-legged, almost looking like a kid at a sleepover. A very dangerous sleepover, he amends, noting the holster that’s now sitting on the nightstand. He’s still wearing his own weapon; the things he’s seen, sometimes he’s afraid not to, though he’s not going to actually admit that to anyone, least of all himself.

They spend the next two and a half hours going over the pertinent details of the file, trying to establish the direction they’ll be taking for tomorrow’s interview. There’s a tiny footnote on one of the pages, barely two lines, but it’s enough to give them a starting point. Albright has suspected involvement in the disappearances of other women; links that could never be proven. Half a dozen women, all of whom have since been declared dead. Albright had never confessed to their murders, and their cases remain unsolved. It’s leverage.

Emily stands, stretching. There’s a certain tiredness in her eyes, and he’s not about to deny the fact that sleep would be nice right about now.  It’s been a long day; not the longest they’ve ever had, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is that they’re both at their best tomorrow morning.

He gathers the bowls and empty cartons, dumping them unceremoniously in the trash can. She brushes past him to get to the other side of the bed, where her go bag is pushed up against the wall. He catches a whiff of something that might be lavender. He’s reminded briefly of piece of trivia passed on to him by Reid, in which three young boys suffered from temporary breast growth after having used shampoo with lavender and tea tree oils. But breast growth isn’t something he wants to associate with Emily, so he tries to push the thought out of his mind. It doesn’t really work though, as evidenced by the concerned look on Emily’s face when she asks him what’s wrong.

He kisses her.

He doesn’t even process the thought entirely; he just leans in and catches her lips. He’s surprised as hell when she actually starts kissing him back. He pulls her in closer, letting his arm snake around her waist. She makes a small noise, which at first, he thinks is satisfaction, but is proven wrong when she starts to pull away.

He lets go.

‘I’m sorry,’ she breathes, and for a moment, he wonders why she’s the one apologizing – after all, he’s the one that instigated the kiss – but then he notices where her eyes are, and he understands. Crime scene photos aren’t exactly the biggest turn on.

Her face is tinged red, whether it’s from embarrassment, or from the heat of the moment, he’s not quite sure. ‘I can’t do this right now,’ she says, apologetic. Her gaze jumps back towards the crime scene photos, the mutilated bodies no doubt burning into her retinas. ‘I don’t want to be distracted.’ She finishes in a voice that suggests that she knows her words sound a little bit weak, but she doesn’t particularly care right now.

‘We should get some rest,’ he says abruptly, and she gives him a grateful smile. He knows he shouldn’t push, and yet part of him still wants to. That’s probably the part of him that led to the signing of three different sets of divorce papers. He’d like to think he’s learned his lesson though, because he packs his stuff and returns to his own room without bringing up the matter again. To his credit, though, it’s not as awkward as it could have been.

He kicks off his shoes and socks, unbuckles his belt. His pajamas are sitting on the top of his ready bag. Usually, he doesn’t bother with the things. If he’s on a case, then chances are they’ll be up into all hours of the evening. This trip has some semblance of a nine to five life, though, so he shrugs off his jacket, shirt and pants, and pulls on the flannelette bottoms.

After he’s made himself comfortable beneath the mauve quilt, it doesn’t take long for him to drift into a slightly uneasy sleep.

After all, tomorrow’s going to be a long day.


	2. Chapter 2

Standing Still

_Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only to stand still._

** _Chinese Proverb_ **

**Part Two**

It still mostly dark when Emily wakes, the slightest hint of sunlight peeking through the curtains. She fumbles for her watch, the low light levels enough to tell her that it’s a little past six a.m. They’re due at the prison by 9, so she has a bit of time to prepare herself for the day’s events.

The first thing she does is make coffee, careful not to spill boiling coffee all over herself. She hasn’t showered yet, but first degree burns would be starting off the day on a poor note. There’s a soft knock on the door that separates the rooms.

‘Come in,’ she calls out. The door had been left unlocked for security reasons. The last thing they need is for one of them to end up dead because of a locked door.

He’s dressed already, which only serves to make her wonder what time he got up. All the foodstuffs had been left in her room though, so they’re both going to have to face the music.

It’s difficult for her, because she has to admit, it’s not as though she didn’t _enjoy_ the kiss. Rossi’s a good person – he cares – and she’s almost positive she doesn’t deserve him. It’s part of the reason why she’s so confused. Because things like this don’t happen to people like her. After having screwed her life up so much, she’d thought she was destined to become an old spinster. Some kind of karmic retribution for her past misdeeds.

She’s still sipping at her coffee when Rossi pours out two bowls of cereal. She usually has toast for breakfast, but the hotel room doesn’t have a toaster, and the plan is to go straight to the prison. For about thirty seconds, there’s nothing but the sound of teeth crunching cereal, and she takes a moment to process how strange it looks watching a fully dressed Rossi eating Honey Bunches of Oats from a bright red plastic bowl. Usually, any breakfast involving the team includes a bag full of pastries from the nearest bakery.

She keeps her eyes down, fervently hoping that he’s not going to make mention of the bright pink _Hello Kitty _pajamas she’s wearing. Garcia had given them to her as a gag gift on her previous birthday and, as luck would have it, they’re the only ones she could find when last repacking her bag in a mad rush. They’re actually surprisingly comfortable, so she doesn’t mind so much. It’s just the stigma of having _Rossi_ see her in them that she’s worried about. But then, he’s not going to judge. He might make a comment, but he won’t think any less of her for it. It’s the kind of situation that makes her wish she’d taken her sweats to the laundromat along with her work clothes.

He’s not even paying attention to her pajamas though, a fact for which she’s grateful. He’s finished his cereal, and is now making good use of the coffee machine. Why he couldn’t just use the machine in his own room, she’s not quite sure. The idea that he’s finding an excuse to spend time with her briefly crosses her mind, followed almost immediately by a wave of embarrassment at the thought. In any case, he’s always been a little more of a morning person than her; for him, coffee isn’t such a survival mechanism. It’s cold outside, though, so if nothing else, they’ll need warming up.

She finishes her own coffee without major incident, and then grabs her clothes from the go bag that’s lying open against the wall. Her toiletries are still in the bathroom from when she’d brushed her teeth, the taste of Rossi replaced with Cool Mint Crest.

She shuts herself in the bathroom, slipping her shirt and pants onto a hanger, and then hooking the hanger onto the door. The steam from the shower will be as close as she’s going to get to an iron, something that’s important today of all days. Freshly pressed clothes aren’t going to change the fact that she fits the victimology to a T, but it might remind Albright that if it came down to it, she could probably hold her own in a confrontation. And in the end, that’s what they’re banking on; the fact that he might be distracted enough by her presence to reveal the information they’re looking for.

_Hello Kitty_ is introduced to the bathroom tiles, followed by a pair of black panties. They’re not nearly as embarrassing, only she isn’t about to go and flaunt them in from of Rossi. Not yet, anyhow. That sends another wave of embarrassment down her spine, so she tries to put the whole thing out of her mind. It isn’t as easy as it look, even with her compartmentalization running at full cylinders. There’s a reason why fraternization is frowned upon. No, she corrects herself. _Rossi’s_ the reason fraternization is frowned upon. She’s heard the rumors, and doesn’t care to guess which ones are actually true.

She fiddles with the mixer tap; she’s been to so many different hotels in the past two years, some with more user-friendly valves than others. This is one of the good ones, and she has the water flowing from the shower head almost immediately, grateful for the sensation of it on her bare skin. With a loofah, she scrubs away the sweat and dirt of the last twenty-four hours, hyperaware of the fact that she can almost feel Rossi’s arm wrapped around her waist, as if he were still holding her.

God _damnit._

Her head tips back, as though letting the water wash over her face might somehow get Rossi out of her mind. The problem is, she’s still thinking of him as Rossi while simultaneously wanting to jump his bones, which tells her that the boundary between personal and professional is starting to blur. She wonders if that came out of nowhere, but then remembers the friendly moments she’s shared with him in the past, and realizes that it’s not quite out of nowhere. It’s just that she had been too blind to notice it.

She finishes up quickly, drying off with the criminally undersized hotel-issue towel. She hadn’t washed her hair, so it’s not long before she’s out of the bathroom, dressed in dark slacks, white blouse and a dark jacket. Rossi is sitting at the table, going over the case file one last time. His coffee isn’t quite finished yet. He doesn’t look up as she sits on the edge of the bed, pulling on her low-heeled boots.

‘You ready?’ he asks, flipping the case file shut. She nods and gives a slightly bitter smile, because it’s almost as though nothing even happened between them.

*          *          *

  

  1. She doesn’t say much on the drive out, but he gathers that’s probably due to the fact that she’s mentally preparing herself for the day ahead. Thoughts in all the right      s, face a blank slate. He doesn’t blame her; it’s not the easiest thing in the world to pretend you don’t care when you really, _really_ do.
  



There’s a multitude of security procedures that they need to go through before they can even get inside the prison, but, being federal agents, they’re allowed to forgo some of them. They hand over their weapons at the appropriate checkpoint, and he feels a little bit naked without the M1911 pistol at his belt, even if it feels a little lighter without it. Emily’s face is expressionless as she hands over her Glock 17. She doesn’t use her weapon as a crutch as much as some agents do. It’s a tool, and if she needs it, she’ll use it, even if she doesn’t want to. The guard gives them a small nod as he locks away their weapons, and it might mean a lot of things: “Good luck” or “be careful in there” or even just “have a nice day.” All are possibilities, especially when he considers the fact that the inmates of this prison aren’t exactly the safest people around, and in spite of the fairly tight security, he and Emily are heavily escorted.

He tries to block out the jeers from the cells as they walk down the hallway. Tries to block out the fact that a lot of these men haven’t been with a woman in a long time, and some of them will never be with a woman again. They’d expected this kind of reception though, so remaining stoic is not as hard as it should be. But it’s still pretty fucking hard.

Emily’s taking it all in stride, though he’s sure that she’ll be thinking about it later, when she’s let down those barriers. The barriers that are so adept at keeping things out are just as practiced at keeping things in, under the right circumstances, so he’s not entirely sure how she’s feeling right now. The profiler in him says that she’s nervous but determined, though really, that has nothing to do with profiling. That’s just Prentiss.

They’re led into a small windowless room that feels as much like a cell as the rest of the prison does. There are two men already there, both in suits – one blue, one grey. They are, he discovers – as the blue suited one makes introductions – Correctional Officer Michael Rosenberg, and Detective Clifford Hewitt. Rossi recognizes both name and face of the Detective – he had been the lead investigator in the disappearance of the four Ohio girls, before the case had gone federal. Before the BAU had been called in.

They shake Rossi’s hand with something that’s akin to respect (he’s well known in the law enforcement community after all) and Emily’s with hesitation. It’s probably not any one thing, but rather a combination of things; that she’s a woman, that she fits the victimology, that she’s not David Rossi, that she isn’t a white male over the age of fifty with a love of fine Scotch.  He’s seen her drink, though, and while she’s usually fairly worse off in the morning, she’s by no means a lightweight. That said, she’s usually drinking beer or wine, rather than two fingers of Lagavulin, no ice.

He doesn’t think of it for very much longer, because Hewitt is asking his permission to sit in on the interview – permission that’s swiftly denied. The detective bristles slightly, and Rossi has a moment of sympathy, because he knows more than he’d like to about unsolved cases – still has nightmares about them sometimes – and he knows that Hewitt is still feeling the burden of those half a dozen women whose fate had never been determined.

‘It would be more beneficial if you observed,’ says Rossi, holding the man’s gaze. ‘If we’re both in the interrogation room, then Albright will be less inclined to reveal pertinent information.’ He doesn’t mention the fact that Hewitt has something of a personal interest in the case, and is likely to become overemotional. Such an outburst would be considered a win by Albright.

‘What about her?’ Hewitt asks, clearly irritated, and Rossi feels his sympathy shifting into annoyance. He waits a few seconds - partially to cool down – but by the time he’s formulated an answer, Emily has already spoken.

‘He doesn’t see me as a threat,’ she says bluntly, evidently not impressed by Hewitt’s attitude. ‘He sees me as a conquest.’ It’s not the word Rossi would have chosen. He probably would have said “victim,” but he understands why Emily wouldn’t want to see it that way. It’s not as though the interview isn’t going to be hard enough.

Hewitt doesn’t seem happy with the answer, but he doesn’t argue, which is good, because he really doesn’t want to be thinking about a tiff-up with a local cop right now. He wants to go in there and get this interview over with.

So they do.

*          *          *

They’re already seated when the guards bring in Albright. Rossi has taken the position closest to the chair Albright is about to be cuffed into, and Emily finds herself sitting a little further away. It’s both a safety thing, and a pragmatism thing – Rossi needs to establish his dominance. Privately, she doesn’t really think he needs any help on that front. Part of her wonders if this is going to end up a pissing contest between him and Albright.

She tenses slightly as the door opens; there are three of them – two guards on either side of the prisoner – but Albright is the only one she really sees. She’s met serial killers up close before – usually right as they’re being cuffed. Her interview experiences are more limited than she’d like – only a few with actual serial killers, and even then, it’s rarely her who’s taken the lead. Technically speaking, Rossi’s taking the lead today anyway, because there’s no chance in hell that Robert Albright is going to consider her worthy of even being there, let alone conducting the interview.

He’s thin – much thinner than the photos in the file show – but still retains some vestiges of handsomeness. It makes him look kind of creepy, she thinks – an appearance to match the demons she knows are lurking beneath his exterior. Dark eyes meet hers briefly, and she’s almost tempted to turn away – something about looking into an abyss – but she doesn’t, and in less than a second, the gaze has passed on.

There’s a few minutes of silence as the guards transfer him to the chair, a series of cuffs and chains ensuring that unless he’s got some kind of Kryptonian blood, breaking free is going to be very, very difficult. One of the guards nods at Rossi, indicating the button on the wall, and adding that someone will be outside the door for the duration of the interview. On top of that, Detective Hewitt and Corrections Officer Rosenberg are watching the live video footage of the interview. If anything should happen to go wrong, then they’ll have back-up within seconds. Though, looking at those dead eyes, she privately wonders if seconds will be enough.

Rossi has the truncated file in front of him, but that’s not what he’s looking at. He’s looking straight ahead, at Albright, and if he’s worrying about the abyss staring into him, then it doesn’t show. Of course, it rarely does.

‘My name is Supervisory Special Agent Rossi,’ he introduces himself, trying to encourage a professional atmosphere, because if he tries to get friendly, then there’s no way that Albright is ever going to respect him. The fact that Supervisory Special Agent Rossi managed to make upwards of a million dollars on that profession only gives him credibility. Of course, she’s not so sure that _Deviance: The Secret Desires of Sadistic Serial Killers_ is on the approved reading list for death row inmates. Although, and it’s been a few years since she’s read _Deviance_, she seems to recall Albright being one of the killers used as an example in the book. If Rossi’s actually interviewed this guy before though, he’s never mentioned it, and she doesn’t think he’d forget such a pertinent detail.

‘It’s my understanding that you’ve agreed to reveal certain details with regards to your crimes,’ starts Rossi, and Albright gives the tiniest indication of annoyance when he realizes that Rossi isn’t going to introduce the other agent in the room. That’s not going to stop whatever fantasies he’s going to have, but at least he won’t be able to put a name to the face. It’s small comfort.

‘Can you describe to me your most practiced methods of torture,’ he asks, and it’s an open-ended question, because it means that Albright might be more inclined to mention something that’s not mentioned in the autopsy reports – something that might be pertinent to the six missing women – bodies, really, they must be by now – that they need to find.

Albright spends the first two hours of the session describing his torture methods in detail, and Emily finds herself taking notes for later reference. Every so often he glances towards her, as if silently asking if she’s enjoying the story. He goes into less detail regarding the sexual aspects of his crime, which is par for the course of this type of offender.

‘Of course,’ he says finally, ‘That’s not including the first six.’ He’s got a knowing smile on his face, as if he had known that that is what they were here for all along. It’s unsurprising, really; he might be a narcissist, but he’s also very intelligent, and part of her wonders what has been going through his mind has been for the duration of the interview. But then, she remembers that she really, _really_ doesn’t want to know.

‘The first six?’ Rossi asks, as though he’s feigning ignorance, but Albright is too smart for that. He looks at Emily directly, giving her a lecherous smile, and she feels her stomach roil.

‘You would have made a fine victim,’ he says softly, and she almost has to bite her tongue to keep herself from making a sarcastic retort. Compartmentalization is all well and good at keep fear out, but sometimes anger can be a much stronger emotion. He closes his eyes, and she still doesn’t want to know what he’s thinking, but, much to her consternation, he tells her – because even though Rossi’s listening in, it’s not him that Albright’s talking to. ‘I’d have whipped you until you body was nothing more than a mess of flesh, blood and bone, and then I would have raped you to death, and dumped your corpse in amongst the earth and rocks, in a place so dark that not even air dares venture there.’

She raises her eyebrow at the phrasing, rather than the content itself. It’s not the worst thing that she’s ever heard, after all. There’s definitely something in there that they can use.

Rossi seems to think so too, because he gives her a silent gesture that they should wrap things up, and less than two minutes later, they’re walking out the door, leaving a smug looking Albright in the care of the two guards.

*          *          *

In the observation room, they find a consternated looking Correctional Officer, and a determined looking Detective. Hewitt, at least, finally seems to understand the reasoning behind the decisions made. Emily seems unaffected by the experience, which, for some reason, makes Rossi swell with pride. She’s been through a fair bit in her time; as far as he knows, she’s never been tortured, but she’s taken a couple of beatings, and he knows for a fact that her childhood was no cakewalk. Albright’s words are nothing compared to that. She even gives a slight smirk when Rosenberg demands to know the significance of Albright’s last words to them.

‘He was telling them where the bodies are,’ says Hewitt matter-of-factly. His vision is a little bit narrow, Rossi thinks. He can’t see the forest for the trees. He’s so focused on wanting to get Albright to talk, that he hasn’t considered the fact that they’re talking to a man with whom deceit is a major personality trait.

‘He’s telling us what we want to _hear_,’ corrects Rossi. ‘We can’t trust anything he says.’ That’s true for the majority of the offenders they’ve profiled in the past. They’ve learned to read between the lines, and the between the lines tells Rossi that Robert Albright isn’t telling them everything.

‘We still need to check it out,’ argues Hewitt. He’s had the burden of these women on his shoulders for so long, Rossi remembers. He also remembers the lengths Prentiss, Morgan and JJ went to help him solve his own cold case, and he knows that he can’t just let this go. If it’s a trap, they’ve some measure of preparation. If it’s not, then there’s a chance they’ll be able to give those womens’ families closure.

He and Emily share a sideways glance. ‘Fine,’ he concedes. ‘Do you have a map of the area? We’ve got some searching to do.’


	3. Chapter 3

Standing Still

_Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only to stand still._

_ **Chinese Proverb** _

**Part Three**

Rosenberg brings in some lunch from the prison cafeteria, and informs them that Albright is being kept in the interrogation room for the time being. On the one hand, they don’t want to give the sick son-of-a-bitch the pleasure of being out of his cell, but on the other hand, chances are they’ll need to question him further after they’ve figured out where he’s hidden the bodies – if he’s even hidden them at all.

Emily picks at the crusts of her sandwich, considerably more interested in the maps that are spread out on the table than the turkey on stale rye that has far too much cranberry sauce. For a full geographical profile, they’d usually turn to Reid, but they’ve both got enough experience to find a location without resorting to phoning a friend.

It’s a lot less claustrophobic in here than it had been in the interrogation room; the air is flowing a little more freely, and Emily finds herself a little more relaxed. Oddly enough, it had been the close-quarters that had bothered her most about the interview, rather than the presence of a sexual sadist.

She’d found herself unperturbed by the threats Albright had made – it’s not as though he’ll ever get the chance to carry them out – but since they’ve left the interrogation room, Rossi’s looking noticeably angrier, and it’s not just the fact that Albright could well be jerking them around. Part of her is still thinking about last night. About the kiss and about the semi-awkwardness that had followed it. Now that she knows how he feels, things are definitely going to be different, and they’re sure as hell going to need to talk at one point if things are going to go back to normal. Though, she’s not sure if “back to normal” is quite what she’s looking for. At the very least they’ll need to pretend that everything’s normal, because it’s not as though any relationship between them would be condoned by the Bureau. But then, she remembers, she doesn’t even know if Rossi’s interested in anything more than sex.

From what she’s heard, he doesn’t exactly have the best record with committed relationships.

But then, that could just be her special kind of paranoia showing. He’s not like the other men she’s slept with; from Italy onwards, she’d always seemed to find the men that saw sex as nothing more than another notch in the bed-post, so to speak. It doesn’t really help that she’s never really had time for intimate soul-searching. In that sense, it’s almost a given that the one person she’s interested in actually finding something more than physical pleasure with is the one person who she’s revealed so much of herself to. Out of all the team, he’s the only one that really knows her secrets, and even then, he’s barely scratched the surface. For all the time they spend working together, she doesn’t really know anything about _him_. She knows how he takes his coffee, but doesn’t know where he grew up. She knows his interrogation techniques, but doesn’t know if he has any siblings. She knows that the look on his face means that he’s thinking hard.

 ‘The bodies we found were left in fairly public places,’ says Hewitt, indicating the crime scene photos that border the map of Ohio. ‘A park, a school. It doesn’t quite fit with the words he used when…’ He trails off, but Emily knows exactly what he’s trying to say. It doesn’t fit with the words he used when threatening to rape and murder her.

She nods. ‘The terminology he used – “in among the earth and the rocks, a place so dark that not even air goes there.” I don’t know of any public place that fits that description.’

Evidently, Rossi too is in agreement. ‘I’d venture that if he _is_ responsible for these disappearances, then at some point, something happened to encourage him to change his M.O.’

‘A trigger,’ says Hewitt. There’s a strained look on his face, and Emily doesn’t really blame him. He’s probably been thinking about this for some time. Right up until the case was deemed closed by the higher authorities. And probably for a little while after that. Cold cases don’t just go away. They take their time weighing on your soul for as long as possible.

Rossi smoothes the map with his hand, eyes focused on the Mahoning County area. Albright had grown up in Youngstown, a symbolism that doesn’t go unnoticed by anyone. Prior to his arrest, though, he had lived in Ashland, several counties over – it’s close enough to be suspicious, but far enough away that it could well be just a coincidence. Of the four Ohio victims, one had been from Cleveland, one from Youngstown, one from Ashland, and one from Toledo. All bodies had been dumped in their respective cities. It’s an idiosyncrasy that doesn’t help matters, though, if they’re to take the profile down to its basic structure, then they’ll have the best luck looking at the places with which Albright has the closest ties, which leaves them Ashland and Youngstown.

‘Albright’s father died when he was young…’ Rossi starts, and at first, Emily’s not entirely sure what he’s getting at. The file tells them that Steven Albright had died when his son was four years old, leaving the boy in the care of his abusive mother.

‘Mining accident,’ says Hewitt, and suddenly, it all clicks. “In amongst the earth and the rocks, in a place so dark that not even air ventures there.”

‘Abandoned mine,’ announces Rossi, voicing the thoughts of everyone. ‘He hid the bodies in an abandoned mine.’

Emily’s heart falls a little, because there are a fair few abandoned mines out there, and they’ll have to profile Albright further if they want to determine exactly which mine the bodies are in, and if they even have a chance of finding them after so long.

She boots up the laptop and calls Garcia, the blond lab tech greeting them enthusiastically. Hewitt raises an eyebrow at the sight – if Emily had thrown his judgment on FBI agents a little, then Garcia’s a veritable cocktail shaker.

‘There are around 4000 abandoned mines in Ohio that have been mapped,’ the tech tells them, twirling a rather extravagant pen with her fingers. ‘Plus another 2000 or so for which “no detailed maps are available.” Let’s hope that Mr. Albright decided to dump his bodies in a mapped mine.’

She inputs the variables into the system; abandoned mine accessible at the time of the disappearances, proximity to Albright’s address at the time, and so on and so forth. Ten minutes, and they’ve narrowed the list down somewhat. While there are a lot fewer options than there were before, it’s still going to take a hell of a lot of searching. Chances are, it will probably get handed over to the local police anyway.__

Hewitt seems a little irritated at that though, Emily can tell, and she knows Rossi can too. With good reason. It’s not the kind of thing that will take priority, and with the relevant safety procedures in place, it could take months, even years before Hewitt finally gets his answers.

‘We could check out some of the local ones,’ Emily suggests, before Rossi can get a word in. ‘Even if there’s nothing there, it’s worth a shot.’ Sometimes that’s what the job is. Taking a long shot and hoping like hell that it works out. Really, though, she thinks, that’s what life is as well. Legendary profiler or not, making a move had been a real risk on Rossi’s part. She feels the slightest tinges of embarrassment when she realizes that she’s thinking about the kiss yet again. That’s probably something to do with the reason why Bureau relationships are frowned upon, but then she thinks that unresolved sexual tension has as much opportunity for disaster as resolved sexual tension.

Rossi nods, but he doesn’t seem entirely sold on the idea. He’s been working the job far too long to leave things like this to chance, Emily knows. ‘You could work Albright further,’ she suggests. ‘I’ll go with Detective Hewitt.’

She can see the gears of his mind working once more; on the one hand, he’s sure as hell not going to want to leave her alone with Albright, but on the other hand, it’s not as though they’ll be trawling through pet stores looking for the cutest puppy.

‘You know, twenty-two people were killed in abandoned mines last year,’ Garcia says from the laptop screen. Emily feels the slightest bit of indignation at the insinuation that she might not be able to do her job properly. God knows it had been difficult enough when she had started at the BAU. She doesn’t need people doubting her now. Then, she realizes that Garcia isn’t trying to be hesitant about her skill set – Garcia is just being Garcia.

‘Alright,’ Rossi says finally, and Emily’s not so sure if she had been looking for his approval because he’s the senior agent, or if it’s because she has a less than professional interest in his opinion. Either way, she doesn’t miss the concerned look he gives her as she walks out the door ten minutes later.

*          *          *

She picks up her Glock from the security checkpoint on the way out; if this is a trap of some variety, then she doesn’t want to be going in unprepared. But then, not all traps can be taken on with the help of a weapon.

They take Hewitt’s car, an unmarked blue sedan with a few dings and scratches marring its body.

‘Car chase,’ explains Hewitt, clearing the passenger’s seat for her. ‘Not as exciting as it sounds, trust me.’

She gives a slight grimace. ‘Yeah, I know that feeling.’ It’s the same response she has to anyone who gets overly interested when she tells them about her job. Not as exciting as it sounds. It’s the truth, of course; eighty percent of the time they’re caught up in paperwork, or consults, or giving guest lectures at the Academy. The other ten percent is nine parts investigative work, and one part sheer terror. That said, they seem to get themselves into trouble a lot more than any other team on the BAU rotation. Reid in particular has more hospital visits that entire teams combined. Emily only has two to her name – Milwaukee and Colorado – and she’s determined to keep it that way.

Hewitt’s a lot mellower than when she was first introduced to him, mere hours ago, and she figures that if she sat down and got to know him, he’d probably be a pretty nice guy, if a little too attached to the job, but then she knows exactly where he’s coming from. At the BAU, workaholic is a way of life.

Hewitt plugs the first location into the GPS, and within moments, they’re on their way. After some consideration, it had become evident that actually exploring the mines in question without appropriate safety measure would be dangerous, so they’d settled on simply scouting out the locations, to determine whether or not they would be viable for further investigation. Even with the narrowed down results, there’s still miles and miles worth of underground tunnels that will need to be searched, if indeed, their assumptions had been correct. Albright could have been talking about the sewers, or a basement, or it could all be just a red herring to satisfy his sadistic urges. Somehow, the thought of that seems just as disturbing as if he actually did kill the women in question.

‘So how long have you been in the FBI?’ Hewitt asks, and Emily jerks out of her momentary reverie. She isn’t quite sure if he’s just trying to make conversation, or is trying to make up for his behavior this morning, but she gathers that it’s a mix of both.

‘Thirteen years,’ she says, while simultaneously thinking, _Shit, has it really been that long?_ It’s amateur compared to some people, but she knows for a fact that there’s nowhere she’d rather be. The BAU is home. The team is family, or at least, the closest thing she’s ever really had to a family. She loves her parents dearly, but they had never really been there for her when it counted. Not in the way the team has. She mulls over this fact far longer than she had intended, apparently, because when she looks up, Hewitt is looking at her, something approaching concern in his eyes.

‘Everything okay?’ he asks.

‘Yeah,’ she replies, even though she’s not quite sure that it’s the truth. She’s not quite sure that it’s ever been the truth. ‘Just thinking.’ He buys it, which is understandable, because it’s the same act she’s been spinning for a long time now, and it would be kind of embarrassing if a detective that she just met could see right through it. It doesn’t fool everyone, though, and that’s part of the reason why she’s in this mess in the first place. She doubts that she’d have the connection with Rossi, if she hadn’t bared part of her soul to him. She’s still thinking about it when the car finally draws to a stop which makes her suddenly realize that she has fallen _hard_.

*          *          *

Almost an hour after Emily’s departure, he sits at the table across from Albright, watching those dark and seemingly empty eyes. David Rossi believes in a lot of things. He believes in good and evil, heaven and hell. He believes in God. He believes in the soul. But now, looking into those eyes, he’s not entirely sure that Robert Albright ever had a soul. His lack of remorse is typical of sociopaths, and he’s fairly sure that Reid would have some kind of neuroscientific explanation for the concept of evil, but the part of Rossi that was brought up as a good Catholic (not _too_ good, though) doesn’t want to believe that that’s all there is to it.

There’s silence between them, and Rossi has been a law enforcement officer long enough to know that whatever Albright had hoped to achieve today, it hasn’t finished yet. There’s still a slightly smug look on his face, as if her were the cat that caught the canary.

‘What happened to your whore?’ he asks, and Rossi takes great pains not to respond. That’s all Albright wants, in the end. A response. He wants his deeds to be acknowledged, to be praised. He wants people to know. It feeds his narcissism. But then, that doesn’t really fit with the idea that he dumped the bodies of six women where no one would ever find them, and he wonders briefly if he hasn’t made the biggest mistake of his life.

‘She’s busy,’ he says shortly, deigning not to give Albright anything more than was necessary. Hell, he probably didn’t even need to give that.

‘Such a pity,’ he says softly. ‘I could have fucked her until she screamed, given half the chance. Tell me, Agent Rossi – would it be you that she was screaming for? Have you fucked her like the dirty slut she is?’

He feels his brow creasing, his fists clenching, but doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t say anything. The best thing he can do is just sit there and try to ignore it, but he’s not so sure he’s strong enough.

‘You haven’t,’ goads Albright, ‘But you want to. You want to ride her. Want to fuck her hard. Want to come in her as she cries out your name. She looks like a screamer.’

‘Just like your mother,’ Rossi says suddenly, because he really, _really_ doesn’t want to deal with Albright taking control of the conversation, so he brings up the one topic he knows will get the sadist’s attention.

‘My mother,’ he spits. ‘Good for nothing whore. She didn’t deserve my father.’

‘Is that why you killed them?’ Rossi says, with a veneer of calm. ‘Because they looked like your mother?’ It’s Profiling 101. The motivations behind the deaths. But it will get Rossi a little closer to finding out more about Albright, and it will get Albright a little further away from his rape fantasies about Emily.

‘I killed them because they were worthless,’ he says, sneering slightly. That might be the case, Rossi thinks, but unconsciously, he killed them because they resembled his mother – the one woman he never had the chance to kill. The file tells him that Marian Albright had been murdered by an ex-boyfriend six years after the death of her husband. If he hadn’t been caught, he would have kept on killing; none of the deaths would have been enough to avenge that deep hatred he held for the woman that had birthed him. People like Albright are the reason Rossi advocates the death penalty.

‘Tell me about your father,’ Rossi prompts, hoping to move past the ranting that has started to define the session. He had evidently respected his father in one way or another; at least, as much as a four-year-old _could_ respect his father. Maybe that’s where all this started. With a father’s death. Rossi knows a lot of people that had absent or inadequate father figures, and they didn’t end up as serial killers; the team are a fairly good example of this. But then, he wouldn’t go so far to as to call them normal. They’ve all got some pretty screwed up things in their life to make them who they are.

Albright says nothing; he just smiles. ‘Don’t think you’ll fool me that easily, Agent Rossi,’ he says eventually, and at first Rossi’s not so sure what he’s getting at. ‘Trying to trick me into revealing something that will help you find their bodies. I thought you were smarter than that.’ Rossi bristles at that, because he’s not the humblest man in the world, and he really doesn’t like the insinuation that he’s stupid. But then he _does_ feel like an idiot when Albright speaks again, because _damnit,_ he should have seen this.

‘You really think that if I’d killed them, I’d have hidden them away from the world?’

And it’s true. He’s a narcissist. He would never have done that. Not even for leverage. And Rossi had been so distracted that he hadn’t even seen it.

‘If you were really as smart as you thought you were, you would have realized that that whore of yours was walking straight into a trap.’

Rossi stands suddenly, and briefly contemplates something violent, because he’s pissed – and not just at Albright. He’s pissed at himself. It’s not worth the effort though, so he turns from the table, and calls for the guards. Strangling this guy to death isn’t going to help Emily. Ten years ago – hell, five years ago – he probably would have walked out of this one with bloody knuckles, but he’s not the same man that he once had been. He’s not a lone ranger anymore. What he does has an impact on the people that he works with. On the other side of the coin, he’s got people to protect now, too.

Logically speaking, there’s no way that Albright could have set up a trap. He’s been on death row for a while now, and security isn’t something that’s taken lightly. The more likely option is that he had simply fed them information that would send them to a place where it was entirely possible that they could die – a last stand of some variety – and while it’s fairly unlikely that anything will go wrong, Rossi pulls out his cell phone anyway, pulling up Emily’s number on speed dial.

Call cannot be connected.

He feels that crushing guilt as he realizes that he may have just sent Emily to her death.

*          *          *

The mine entrance is a little out of the way, and it seems a lot more foreboding than any Emily’s ever seen, but that’s probably just because there’s the slightest possibility that there are six skeletons rotting away inside of this mine.

They’re canvassing the outside of the mine, looking for any indication that Albright might have used this place as a dumping ground over a decade ago. Personally, Emily’s not that optimistic about results. It’s been a long time, and there is a _lot _of ground to cover, and she knows that the main reason they’re doing this is to assuage Hewitt’s long-standing guilt. She admires his dedication at first; right up until the point that he decides the best course of action now is to look inside the mine itself.

It’s not complete thoughtlessness she knows; after all, most law enforcement officers can attest to doing stupid things in the face of no other option.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ she asks him, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

‘Please,’ he says, and there’s a sheer desperateness that makes her pity him. ‘I need to know.’

She briefly considers holding him back, but he’s a good six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than her, and even all the close-combat training Morgan had been so intent on giving her isn’t going to help. So, for lack of other options, she follows him in. If something goes wrong, she really doesn’t want to leave him in there to die alone.

He pulls a flashlight from his pocket, and the beam flickers on in the darkness.

‘He won’t have taken them too far in,’ breathes Hewitt softly. ‘He might be intelligent, but he isn’t trained to be exploring abandoned mines.’

_Neither are we_, Emily feels like saying, but she doesn’t, because she’s mostly concentrating on breathing right now. She’s never been a fan of small spaces, and the thought that they might be breathing in carbon dioxide instead of oxygen _really_ doesn’t help.

They’re almost a hundred feet in when she hears a thud, followed by a loud, ‘Ouch!’

‘Are you alright?’ She wonders if he’s just run into a skeleton – if their searching really hadn’t been pointless after all.

‘Just a rock,’ he says, and she sees his grimace of pain in the torchlight. He’s almost about to move forward, when Emily holds up a hand. She can hear something. It sounds like a distant rumbling, almost as though…

Oh, _shit_.

‘We’re leaving, _now_,’ she says, grabbing him by the arm, as tiny chunks of rock start to fall around them.

She really doesn’t want to die like this.


	4. Chapter 4

Standing Still

_Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only to stand still._

_ **Chinese Proverb** _

**Part Four**

She can feel the falling debris striking her body, getting caught in her hair, stinging exposed flesh, can feel the pounding of her heart as each foot strikes the ground. She can hear the cave falling away around them, can smell the dank air, can taste the dirt that gets caught in her mouth on the way down. She can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and really, that’s the only thing that matters. Getting out alive.

That might prove a little more difficult than imagined, she realizes, when she hears Hewitt swear from behind her. There’s a sharp cracking sound, and he falls forward, knocking Emily down with him. She feels a sharp pain shooting through her body as she hits the hard ground. Not having the time to evaluate the status of her health, she scrambles to her feet as quickly as possible, trying desperately to ignore the twinges that accompany the action.

Hewitt attempts to simulate Emily’s accomplishment, but groans the moment he puts weight on his left foot. ‘I think I broke my ankle,’ he moans, reaching towards the rock wall with his hand.

Emily suppresses a sigh. ‘Come on,’ she says, taking his arm and hooking it around her shoulders. She thinks that carrying him would probably be better for the ankle, but he’s six inches taller than her, and fifty pounds heavier, and it would most probably put both of them out for the count. She makes a mental note to accompany Morgan to one of his half-dozen fortnightly gym sessions. As it stands though, a good portion of his weight is on her, and she knows she’ll be even sorer tomorrow morning. They hobble forward slowly, and she tries desperately to ignore the bits of rock and dirt that are getting caught in her eyelashes, impeding her vision.

They step out into the sunlight, finally, and Emily swears that it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. And the oxygen – oh, God, the oxygen. She sucks down a breath of air, and makes a vow to never go into a place with dubious air quality ever again. They’d been in the mine less than five minutes, but when the world is crashing down around you, five minutes can feel like a lifetime.

It’s not far back to Hewitt’s car, so she uses the last of her adrenaline rush to get them there, letting herself fall to the ground once she’s gotten him into the back seat.

‘There is a reason,’ she says, pausing to take a breath, ‘why people don’t go into abandoned mines. They are _dangerous_.’ And she’s kind of pissed, considering that Hewitt really, _really_ should have known this. He’s a seasoned detective, not a daredevil teenager with something to prove.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, grimacing in pain, and she thinks she can almost see tears in his eyes. ‘I just…I needed to know.’

Emily knows that reprimanding him isn’t exactly going to help right now, so she finds the first aid kit in the trunk of the car, and starts taking a look at Hewitt’s ankle. She slips off the shoe and sock, and notes that it has already started to swell. She probes the area gently with her fingers, pulling away only when he gives a sharp hiss.

‘I’m pretty sure it’s broken,’ she says, but then, it’s been a while since she’s had a first aid refresher course. It probably needs a splint, but she’d prefer to let experts take care of that part, providing, of course, she can get hold of an ambulance.

There’s an instant ice pack in the kit, which she squeezes and shakes, which, according to Reid, causes an endothermic reaction. She wraps the pack in a towel that had been sitting next to the first aid it in the trunk.

‘Good think you paid attention to Douglas Adams, right?’ she asks, putting the wrapped pack against his foot, only really, she’s trying to distract him from the pain.

‘What?’

‘You should carry a towel everywhere. They can come in pretty handy.’

‘I guess that’s true,’ he grits, as she elevates his leg onto a pile of blankets – also from the trunk.

‘But you were a boy scout, right?’ she asks. His brow furrows in confusion.

‘How did you…’

‘Come on,’ she grins. ‘First aid kit, towel, blankets, torch. “Be prepared,” right?’

‘Right,’ he grunts, with a forced grin. ‘I guess I’ll have to hand back that Abandoned Mine Safety merit badge.’

‘Keep that foot still,’ she instructs him, pulling out her phone, with the intent of calling an ambulance, or at the very least, Rossi.

Emily swears.

There’s a long, jagged crack down the screen. She presses a few buttons experimentally, holding up the phone to her ear. There’s nothing. That’s what she gets for keeping the thing in her pocket.

‘You have a phone?’ she asks Hewitt. He gestures silently towards the front of the car, where she finds it in a compartment in the center console. She dials Rossi’s number from memory, hoping like hell that the single bar of reception isn’t going to crap out on her.

‘_Hello?_’ His voice is slightly frantic, and she’s pretty sure that he’s driving, judging by the sounds in the background. Why he isn’t still interviewing Albright, she’s not quite sure.

‘Rossi, it’s me.’

‘_Emily, thank God._’ And she pauses then, because there is just so much relief in his voice; as if it would have been the end of the world if it hadn’t been her on the line. ‘_Listen, Albright was trying to play us. He never killed those women, he just wanted someone to go looking, and hopefully, get hurt in the process_.’

She lets out a shaky breath. ‘Well, he succeeded.’

_‘Em, are you-’_

‘I’m fine.’ She cuts him off before he has the chance to have a heart attack. ‘There was a, ah, slight cave-in…while we were inside. Hewitt’s ankle could be broken. I’ll explain later, but, could you…’

‘_I’ll call an ambulance. Are you sure you’re okay?’_

She almost laughs at the depth of his concern. ‘I’m fine,’ she reiterates. ‘Some bruises and scrapes, but nothing life threatening. Trust me.’ He must be at least partially satisfied with her answer, because he hangs up then, promising to be there soon, with an ambulance in tow.

*          *          *

He breathes a shaky sigh of relief as he hangs up. He takes a moment to regain his composure before calling for an ambulance. After having received no answer from Emily’s cell, he had instructed Garcia to track the GPS on Detective Hewitt’s car. That had been twenty minutes ago. Now that he knows that she’s safe, or at least that she claims she’s safe, he slows down a little bit, so that he’s actually driving the speed limit. He’s fairly sure that even with that taken into consideration, he’ll still arrive a few minutes before the ambulance.

It’s another twenty minutes before he actually gets there, the sudden braking throwing up dirt, and he’s not entirely sure why he’s still feeling slightly panicked. Emily’s alive, and she’s uninjured, and there’s absolutely no reason for his heart to be racing this hard, but it is, and not knowing why terrifies the crap out of him.

He looks around, and at first he can’t see her, he can just see the dark blue Ford with its rear left-side door wide open. There’s a flurry of movement in the front of the car, and he realizes that she’s sitting in the passenger’s seat. Evidently noting his arrival, the door swings open, and she steps out to greet him.

She looks like crap.

That’s the pragmatic part of him talking, of course. Her hair is messed up, and her clothes and skin are streaked with dirt, and she has tiny scratches all over her body. A thin trickle of blood runs down the side of her head. There’s a different part of him that thinks that in spite of all this, she’s still the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

‘Hey,’ she greets him. Her eyes are slightly wide, and he thinks that behind the façade of strength, she’s still shell-shocked. As dangerous as the job can be, near-death experiences aren’t exactly everyday events. He wants to hug her, but settles instead for a pat on the shoulder.

‘How is he?’ he asks, even though it’s really not the question he wants to ask.

‘In pain,’ she says, adding, after a moment’s consideration, ‘Kind of ashamed that he went in there in the first place.’

And that’s all it takes for Rossi to know how this had gone down. He knows enough about guilt, enough about cold cases, to know that sometimes you’re willing to do anything, even if it means your life.

‘Emily, you should get checked out,’ he tells her, when the ambulance finally does arrive, and she gives him a look of sheer exasperation.

‘_David_,’ she says. ‘Trust me, I’m fine.’

‘Please, just…humor me.’ He needs to know that she’s _really_ alright; her assurances aren’t going to be quite enough to convince him that she isn’t nursing a stealth concussion behind those bruises.

‘Fine.’ She rolls her eyes at him affectionately and reports the paramedic that had been standing there, as though waiting for her. Hewitt’s being loaded onto a stretcher, making a loud moaning sound. Rossi’s no doctor, but he guesses that it had been a pretty bad break. Hewitt might be many things, but he isn’t about to admit to pain so easily.

The paramedic gives Emily a brief examination, checking her balance and reflexes and making sure that the rest of her is free from debilitating injuries. He gives her the all clear, but recommends a good night’s sleep. Rossi privately breathes a sigh of relief. The last thing he needs is to call Hotch and tell him that Emily’s been checked into hospital – on a custodial interview, no less. He’ll tell Hotch what had happened when they return, of course, but right now he wants to just get back to the hotel. They’re booked in for another night, so providing nothing unexpected happens in the next eighteen hours, they should be on their way back to Quantico tomorrow morning.

So they drive back – or rather, Rossi drives – in silence, but it’s not an awkward silence, it’s a calm, comfortable thing. She refuses the offer to stop and buy painkillers, stating that no self-respecting woman would go anywhere without Advil. He’s not about to ask for elaboration; he’d figured out the answer to that one not long after his first marriage.

It’s barely mid-afternoon by the time they get back to the hotel, and Emily’s looking exhausted, and he doesn’t quite blame her. It’s not just the physical tiredness, but the mental exertion of the interview, culminating in a profiler that’s having trouble keeping her eyes open. He sees her to her room, but stops short of accompanying her into the shower – he figures that would be taking things a little too far.

He goes back to his own room, and lays down atop the mauve comforter, flicking on the TV. A search for something decent to watch is fruitless; at this time of day, he’s hard-pressed to find anything other than soaps and talk shows. He closes his eyes to the sound of silence, figuring that he could probably do with an hour or two of sleep anyway.

*          *          *

She sheds her clothes, wincing as fabric brushes the multitude of scrapes on her skin. All in all, she thinks she got out of this one easy, considering she could well have died in that mine. Small favors. Her eyes are itching a little, so she searches through her toiletry bag, looking for the eye drops that she knows are in there somewhere. There are half a dozen of them in her purse as well, reserved for those cases where she needs to spend another twelve hours on her feet without feeling like a _complete _wreck. The saline solution helps, but it’s only the first step.

The needles of hot water sting her skin, as the blood and dirt wash away. They stains the water a reddish brown, and it’s almost hypnotic as it circles the drain. She closes her eyes. It’s not the pain that’s the problem – she can live with the pain. Her mind is simply a jumble of events. She’s tired and confused and really needs to know what all of this means. Needs to know why all of this has happened. There’s Rossi, and there’s Albright, and there’s Hewitt and all three of them seem hell bent on screwing with her, even if not all of them had realized they had been doing it.

She dries herself off, and disinfects and puts bandages the wounds that look like they might need it. She had never been a boy scout – or a girl scout, for that matter – but she had spent enough time exploring foreign countries as an adolescent to know that preparation never really goes awry. Fifteen had been the first time she’d made the mistake of being _really _not prepared, and it’s something she’s had to live with ever since.

The _Hello Kitty _pajamas go on, and she relishes in the warmth, and the softness, and the cleanliness, and, above all, the safety that it seems to give her. Just like Rossi.

But no. He might be safe, but she really has nothing but her overactive imagination to vouch for the other factors. Safety in itself, though, has been something in short supply for every relationship she’s had in the past five years – relationships she can count on a single hand.

She slips into the bed, curling into the covers. She’s starting to ache a little now, in addition to the stings of her just bandaged wounds, but it’s not really bad enough to dig through her bag looking for the Advil, and she really doesn’t feel like getting up right now. Instead, she lets herself drift off into a fitful sleep.

*          *          *

He wakes up at around five o’clock; through the crack of the curtains, he can see that the sky is a brilliant shade of orange, lit up by the last rays of the setting sun. Truthfully, he’s surprised that he had slept for that long, having only intended to rest his eyes for half an hour, or so.

The first thing he does is call Correctional Officer Rosenberg, apologizing for his hasty departure, though he’s not sure he really means it. There’s no extra paperwork to be done, and there’s nothing more that they can do with Albright, so he sees this as a kind of informal wrap-up to the day’s proceedings. Not the way he would have gone about it, given the choice.

Rosenberg thanks him, giving assurances that Robert Albright will be transferred to Lucasville for execution next week, and Rossi can’t help but think _Good riddance_.

It’s been a while since that sandwich this morning, and he’s starting to feel hungry, so he grabs the keys to SUV, and heads out to the elevators, pausing only to knock softly on Emily’s door. There’s no answer, so he assumes that she’s either still asleep, or avoiding him, and he’s hoping like hell that it’s the former.

He stops by the same Chinese restaurant as last night, because the food’s good, and he _can_ stop by the liquor store tonight. He buys a couple of bottles of Merlot, rationalizing that if they don’t get drunk tonight, then he can always drink them at home. The clerk raises an eye at his purchases; the cost of the wine doesn’t really correlate with the cartons of Chinese food in his other hand. He figures he’s got a fair chunk of money sitting around that he doesn’t have time to spend, so he may as well use it for something he’s going to enjoy.

When he gets back to the hotel, he knocks a little louder on Emily’s door; if she sleeps any longer now, she’ll be twisting and turning all night. She answers the door in those ridiculous pink pajamas, and he can’t help but smile. It’s a disguise, in a way; she looks so innocent, so helpless in the things, and yet he knows that the woman beneath them is one of the strongest people he knows. Of course, there’s another part of him that’s simply thinking_ Hello, kitty_.

She looks a hell of a lot better than she did a few hours ago, the cuts and bruises on her face are a lot cleaner, and her hair is still damp from the shower. She steps back wordlessly to let him inside, and he figures that she’s pretty hungry as well, considering it’s been just as long since she’s eaten, and her day has been much more exhausting. She hasn’t taken any painkillers as it turns out, so she is perfectly happy to indulge in the wine. He remembers the last time she drank, and makes a mental note to ensure that she drinks responsibly tonight. But not _too_ responsibly, he adds.

And that’s the mentality that has him taking a plunge off the deep end, because if he screws this up, he’s not only destroying a friendship, he’ll be affecting the team. All the rumor say that David Rossi is the reason for the rules in the first place. They’re not wrong.

He leans in slowly, giving her time to pull away if she doesn’t want this.

She doesn’t pull away.

*          *          *

Their lips lock, and it’s both slow and intense at the same time. He seeks out the most sensitive parts of her mouth, probing. Part of her can’t help but remember that he’s probably had a lot of practice with the more intimate elements of a relationship. Her own past experiences haven’t exactly been characterized by emotional closeness. He has his own troubles with committed relationships, she knows, but they’re a different kind of troubles.

‘David…’ she whispers, as they pull away, and she can’t help but cringe at the needy tone of her voice. It has definitely been a while.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asks, face jumping from bliss to concern.

‘No,’ she replies, decidedly. ‘I want this. I want you.’

If he notices the hints of desperation, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he cups her cheek in one hand, the other trailing her torso to rest on her hip. He kisses her again, and she feels his firm fingers brushing up her abdomen to her bare chest.

All of a sudden, she feels far too clothed, so she pushes his jacket off, in the hopes that he’ll get the hint, and reciprocate. He doesn’t, straight away, so she pulls his shirt from his pants, and starts unbuttoning it slowly, methodically. He pulls back, letting his fingers dance over the tiny trademarked kittens across her breast. ‘You do realize that the target demographic for _Hello Kitty _is the under tens?’ he says, a smile twitching on his lips.

She slaps his bare chest playfully. In her lonelier moments, she’ll admit (under pain of death) to having had certain fantasies about the male members of the team. With Reid, it’s intellectual, with Morgan (though he’s not an unintelligent man) it’s physical, and she doesn’t even want to start _thinking_ about Hotch like that. But with Rossi, she imagines it as being just the right amount of mental and physical. He’s one of the foremost experts in criminal behavior, and for a man of fifty and some change, he’s definitely still got muscles in all the right places. She can definitely feel something she likes pressed up hard against her thigh.

He lifts her pajama top slowly then, taking care to lay kisses along the underside of her breasts.

‘I would have thought you were a clit man,’ she says, and almost thinks that she’s made a big mistake, but then he looks up, smiling, and says:

‘I appreciate beauty in all of its forms,’ he replies, and for a moment, she’s stunned. Yeah. She definitely doesn’t deserve David Rossi.

If he notices her hesitations – which he probably does – he doesn’t show it, and for some reason that makes a tear spring to her eye. The compartmentalization thing doesn’t work so well in such an emotionally-charged situation. It’s different to cases. Cases are something she can deal with, something she can understand. She doesn’t understand love.

She lets her fingers work on his belt anyway, because if she idles for too long, then he’s definitely going to say something, and she doesn’t want to draw attention to her emotional problems.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispers, and she feels her heart twang. She’s going to burst into tears if he keeps talking like this.

Her hips cant upwards as he slips off the pajama bottoms, and suddenly she’s lying there in just her black panties, bared for the world to see. Or bared for David Rossi to see, as the case happens to be. He’s already seen part of what lies beneath the façade, and he isn’t flinching.

Their hands meet at the button of his jeans, and it’s a short step from there to Rossi – Dave. She should really call him Dave when he’s doing these kinds of things to her – fumbling around for a condom. A condom from the packet he had picked up at the 7-11 when he bought dinner, apparently.

‘You were that confident you were going to get lucky tonight?’ she asks breathlessly, watching as he rolls the condom on.

‘Didn’t I tell you?’ he says, ‘I’m a profiler.’ He pushes inside of her, and his words might have meant more if she wasn’t gasping for air. It’s been a long time and she’s sure as hell going to be sore in the morning.

She wants to say something like, “Oh God,” but all she can manage are a few breathless pants. His hand cups her ass, pulling her closer towards him. The pace is perfect, and she’s starting to feel the edges of an orgasm coming on, which is more than she can say for the last person she had slept with.

He comes not long after her, holding up his weight with his forearms. They’re both breathing heavily, and it’s a while before she manages to find enough oxygen to say, ‘Jesus Christ, Rossi.’ The words come out as a half sob, and she realizes that she’s crying the same time Rossi does. He pulls out, taking a few seconds to dispose of the condom and then readjusts his position. His thumb brushes across her cheek, wiping the tear away.

‘Are you alright?’ he asks. ‘Did I hurt you?’

She shakes her head, the tears merging with soft laughter. ‘No, it’s…I’m sorry. I get a bit…hormonal sometimes.’

He curls an arm around her abdomen, pulling her in closer once again, and she can feel that warmth, that safety. That he’s taken the initiative in holding her gives the assumption that they’ll both be sleeping in her room tonight. And she’s okay with that.

‘Productive day, though,’ he says, and she can almost see him grinning.

‘Yeah,’ she almost snorts. And that reminds her; ‘We should probably check in on Hewitt. Make sure he’ll be on his feet soon.’

‘You’re trading me in for a new model already?’ he asks, and it’s with the tone of someone who’s committed, and she’s entirely sure what she thinks of that, except that she’s completely and utterly terrified.

THE END

 


End file.
